To take advantage of Apple’s Personal Voice feature, you need:

  • iOS 17 or iPadOS 17, or later
  • One of these devices:
    • iPhone 12 or later
    • iPad Air (5th generation)
    • iPad Pro 11-inch (3rd generation) or later
    • iPad Pro 12.9-inch (5th generation) or later
  • Face ID, Touch ID, or a device passcode or password

Creating your Personal Voice

To record your Personal Voice, follow these steps

  1. Open the Settings app of your device.
  2. Go to Accessibility → Personal Voice → Create a Personal Voice.
  3. Follow the instructions to set up a Personal Voice. You will be asked to read 150 phrases to train machine learning. That’s all—your device will generate your voice.

While in Accessibility → Personal Voice, ensure the toggle for "Allow Apps to Request to Use” is on.

Note: Personal Voice in iOS 17 generation is not a short process. The reading phrases stage takes around 10-20 minutes to finish, and once you have read all the phrases, it might take a few hours to days for the voice to process. It’s because generating the voice takes place only when the device is connected to a charger and locked.

You can read more about Apple’s Personal Voice in their support article: Create a Personal Voice on your iPhone, iPad or Mac

Choosing your Personal Voice in simPODD

Make sure you are running simPODD 3.1 or higher.

During the onboarding, you will be asked to select a voice:

    • Scroll to the bottom of the page and tap on “Apple Voices".
    • You may see an alert saying: "Allow 'simPODD' to Use Personal Voice", click "OK"
    • Look for your Personal Voice's name and select it from the list.

When you want to use your Personal Voice for an existing PageSet:

    • Go to "Settings"
    • Tap "Speech"
    • Tap "Voice"
    • Scroll to the bottom of the page and tap on "Apple Voices".
    • You may see an alert saying: "Allow 'simPODD' to Use Personal Voice", click "OK".
    • Look for your Personal Voice's name and select it from the list.